Questioning reality
by reebajee
Summary: The thing about dying in your sleep is that it makes reincarnation feels like a dream.


**Questioning reality:** The thing about dying in your sleep is that it makes reincarnation feels like a dream.

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I fell asleep reading fan fiction in New York City and woke up in Iwagakure.

 _(Being reborn feels like being forced out of bed to go to school.)_

I cry out in indignation and my voice sounds weird. I vaguely realize that I'm a baby. Oh well, can't be the strangest dream I've had.

The first few years in this dream I spend sleeping. A lot. My parents in this dream think I'm retarded or something. What can I say? My dreams in this dream are about my family in New York. And it's not every day you get to live out inception type shit like that. When I am 'awake' I usually lie about, analyzing myself for having this dream. Maybe it's a psychological yearning to be able to trust in others, the way a baby does? I'm always so self-reliant when I'm awake, so this is probably a way for my psyche to let loose and be dependent on something.

I also pick up a new language the way babies do. It's kind of amazing what my mind can come up with. Not for the first time, I think what a shame it'll be that I won't remember most of this when I wake up. I have pretty good dream recollection from my years of keeping a dream journal, but there's no way I'd remember my mind's own made up language.

I think I'm a genius. How else could I come up with all this shit? Then again, I've always been very creative, a dreamer you could say, and maybe this is normal. It could be that this is what all my dreams are like, but I only remember tiny, tiny tidbits of them.

Time perception is very weird. I think about that a lot. I mean, to me, it feels like years have passed, but in reality, it's been probably like, a millisecond.

Once I start going to school, it becomes pretty clear to the others that I'm crazy. It probably had to do with my obsession with flying. Or maybe because none of this was real so I didn't feel obligated to follow social norms? Naw, it's the flying. In most of my lucid dreams, it just took concentration and it happened. It was more like swimming or levitation than anything. Here I'm often seen outside, standing in one place for hours, my arms outreached, trying, willing myself to fly. I was patient. The other kids, not so much.

After a while not paying attention in school, it became clear that this world had some Naruto stuff going on. How embarrassing. I know my roommate teases me about talking in my sleep about the anime, but I don't remember ever dreaming about it. I wonder if I'm sleep talking right now. Only one way to test it. I stand up in the middle of a chakra lecture and yell at the top of my lungs, "Sasuke, you stupid bitch!"

… I got sent out of class pretty quickly.

People in the dream say that I don't think about the consequences of my actions, but they're not real, so what do I care. This is a dream, a place where I can work out my inner turmoil by acting on impulse, why can't they see that? It reminds me of this time I dreamed I was in a maze with my mother and we were arguing about who's dream it was. It was mine of course. I interrupt the teacher and tell him this. "Your point?" He asks. I tell him it's the same thing. He can tell me whatever he wants to make me think He's in control and I'm not, but it's not going to work this time. I say I already know whatever it is he's telling me, that I actually have a really good moral compass and self control that I just don't use here because it doesn't matter. That got me another earful. It's times like these that are tiresome. I wish I'd just wake up already. No wonder I'm a goody two shoes when I'm awake if my own mind lectures me about behaving in my sleep.

I think the only reason they didn't kick me out of the academy for being batshit crazy is because I wasn't squeamish about killing things. I took a perverse pleasure in cutting things up. I mean, if my mind wants to exhibit an inner sadist while I'm asleep, who am I to judge? Better now than when I'm awake.

At one of the chunin exams, I met Shikako Nara, the girl in the fan fiction I was reading. I wonder what she'll think of this situation. After all, it must be weird to hear you're an OC. After talking a while with her, I feel more than a little overwhelmed. She managed to do what no one else was quite able to. She made me consider that this is real. I started to wonder if this really was a dream. So I did the thing I always do when the story I've been telling myself stops making sense. I abandon it and start writing another.

I don't think I'll ever really know the truth, but then again, do we ever?

Normally I wouldn't be so lackadaisical about this. Maybe I retained my laid back about life attitude from years of acting in a dream, perhaps my personality truly changed, or maybe no matter how convinced I was, none of this still felt totally real.

I'll never know.

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Fanfiction I referenced: Dreaming of Sunshine, by Silver Queen


End file.
